Innovation in airport restrooms

In the past ten days I have passed through four different airports and numerous rest rooms. In each restroom I have been faced with a conundrum of massive and time-consuming proportion – where is the toilet flusher?

Days gone by it was simple – there was a little handle on the side of the tank (there was a tank!) usually on the left side, which you pushed down at the appropriate time. Now, there are buttons, handles, levers, foot pedals placed at seemingly the most inconspicuous and irrational places. Or sometimes nothing at all – for now someone had the bright idea to use sensors, which have the maddening habit of going off at all sorts of times during your "process". A trip to a public restroom is nowadays akin to solving a mindquest puzzle – sure to keep the brain nimble for years to come!

This got me wondering about how organizations go about innovation. Did any of us complain bitterly about the good old flush handles? Did we clamour vociferously for a new and improved toilet flusher? Did the toilet manufacturers or restroom designers do a survey that said overwhelmingly that we wanted new and improved flush mechanisms? I think not. Yet every new toilet has some new and improved way to flush. Why the changes? Why the constant improvements?

One answer could be that companies are not clear on why they are innovating as they don't really know their customer. How many companies really take the time to know their customers - who they are, their needs, wants and desires (and the differences between them), their habits, their usage patterns, their idiosyncracies? This is where innovation ought to begin for innovation ought to benefit to the customer in terms of their experience. Innovation for innovation sake, while balm to the corporate ego, is the bane of customers and users.

It is important that companies make sure that they are not designing their equivalent of the next new and improved flush mechanism, but that in innovating, they are keeping the true needs of their customers foremost.